brute force attacks : a 4. Banking, Finance and Trading : With the Big
cyber attack that relies Data analytics, the investment patterns of the people can
on guessing all possible be studied. New insights have enabled the banks and
combinations of a targeted finance companies to come with suitable plans. Big Data
password untill the right has enabled smooth functioning of these agencies and
one is found institutions.
mised-transactions: wrong
transactions Banking and finance sector is using Big Data to predict
transaction : an exchange and prevent cyber crimes, card fraud detection, archival
or transfer of funds of audit trails, etc. By analyzing the past data of their
customers and the data on previous brute force attacks
Can we understand the banks can predict future attempts. Big Data not only helps
economy of the country by in predicting cyber crimes, but it also helps in handling
the data on Banking and issues related to mised-transactions and failures in net
Finance? banking. It can even predict possible spikes on servers so
that banks can manage transactions accordingly.
algorithm : a process of set
of rules to be followed in The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) is using
calculations especially by a Big Data to monitor financial markets for possible illegal
computer trades and suspicious activities. The SEC is using network
analytics and natural language processors to identify
possible frauds in the financial markets.
High-Frequency Trading (HFT) is an area where Big
Data finds a lot of use today. Here, Big Data algorithms
are used to make trading decisions. Today, the majority
of equity trading now takes place via data algorithms
that increasingly take into account signals from social
media networks and news websites to make, buy and sell
decisions in split seconds.
5. Sports : When watching a cricket match, we
are shown so many permutations and combinations of
statistical analysis. A gigantic data has been created over
a period of time from the recording of matches, training
sessions and workouts. The data enables a sportsperson
to study his performance as well as of the other players
worldwide. It has tremendously helped in improving
individual as well as team performance. The sensors
embedded in the sports equipment help us to understand
our game from close quarters. The sensors help us to
understand the field conditions, the weather, individual
performance etc. Video analytics help us to see each and
every performance minutely.
38
6. Advertising : Advertisers are one of the biggest demographics: statistical
players in Big Data. Be it Facebook, Google, Twitter data relating to the given
or any other online giant, all keep a track of the user population and particular
behaviour and transactions. These internet giants provide groups within it
a great deal of data about people to the advertisers so Do you think people click
that they can run targeted campaigns. Take Facebook, consciously on Facebook ?
for example, here you can target people based on buying Discuss.
intent, website visits, interests, job roles, demographics
and what not. All this data is collected by Facebook Do you think Big Data will
algorithms using Big Data analysis techniques. The help to bring improvement
same goes for Google, when you target people based on in students?
clicks you will get different results and when you create a
campaign for leads then you will get different results. All
this is made possible using Big Data.
7. Entertainment and Media : In the field of
entertainment and media, Big Data focuses on targeting
people with the right content at the right time. Based
on your past views and your behaviour online you will
be shown different recommendations. This technique
is popularly used by Netflix and Youtube to increase
engagement and drive more revenues.
Now, even television broadcasters are looking to
segment their viewer’s database and show different
advertisements and shows accordingly. This will allow
better revenue from ads and will provide a more engaging
user experience.
8. Education Industry : Big Data has inundated
the education industry. It has transformed it in leaps and
bounds. Now we have information about the students,
their study patterns, and we can now prepare customized
and dynamic learning programmes according to the need
of an individual student. Every student’s comprehension
level is different. The course material can now be designed
catering to different requirements of the students. Big
Data makes it convenient to understand their choices,
their difficulties, information regarding various courses
and their specialties; we also have an access to the results.
From the results we can gauge the progress of the students,
understand his strengths and weaknesses. This will also
help in guiding the student regarding the best career for
him based on his mental make-up and abilities. An in-
39
Discuss a solution depth study of all this would definitely give new insights
provided by Big Data. into the education industry and help in improving the
operational effectiveness and working of educational
institutes. This would in general, enhance progress of all
students. Big Data has provided a solution to one of the
biggest pitfalls in the education industry, that is one –
size- fits- all.
We have innumerable uses of Big Data. It is helpful
in scientific researches, understanding geographical
phenomena, helping in the smooth working of the
government machinery etc. It is a genie in our hands. It
lies in our hands to make the optimum use of it for the
benefit of mankind.
***
BRAINSTORMING
(A1) Youtube has many videos on various things. Listen to the uses and health
benefits of 'Lemon' and share them with your friends.
(A2) (i) Make pointwise notes from the lesson regarding the uses of Big Data in
the following application. Do not write complete sentences.
(a) Location Tracking -
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(b) Health Care Industry -
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(c) Education Industry -
(1)
(2)
40
(3)
(4)
(ii) When you are asked for personal details on social media, what precautions
will you take? Discuss in pairs and write down.
(iii) Do you think all the data we receive is used for positive things? If 'No',
make a list of the negative things which can be done with the help of Big
Data.
(A3) Guess the meaning of the following idioms and phrases and use them in
sentences of your own. One is done for you.
One-size-fits-all – suitable for or used in all circumstances
The wrist watches have adjustable belts, so one- size- fits- all
(a) ‘Once in a blue moon’
(b) ‘One man army’
(c) ‘Once bitten twice shy’
(d) ‘One up on’
(A4) (i) Do as directed.
(a) Advertisers are one of the biggest players in Big Data.
(1) Begin the sentence with ‘Very few ………….’
(2) Use ‘bigger than’ and rewrite the sentence.
(b) No other diagnosis is as good as the diagnosis done with the help of Big
Data.
(1) Use ‘best’ and rewrite the sentence.
(2) Use ‘better than’ and rewrite the sentence.
(c) These internet giants provide the greatest data about people.
(1) Begin the sentence with ‘No other……..’
(2) Use ‘greater than’ and rewrite the sentence.
(ii) Read the sentence from the text.
New insights have enabled the banks and finance companies to come up with
suitable plans.
This sentence can be rewritten as 'New insights have enabled the banks as
well as finance companies to come up with suitable plans'.
Remember, 'as well as' serves the same purpose as that of co-ordinating the
conjunction 'and' in the sentence. When one of them is inserted in the sentence,
other should be removed.
41
Use 'as well as', 'either ...... or' in the following sentences.
(a) Whatever activity we do online is recorded, monitored and analysed.
(b) Big Data has been useful in identifying and tracking the exact
location of a place.
(c) Weather sensors and satellites help us to understand the weather and
help in weather forecasting.
(d) Big Data helps in monitoring the outbreaks of epidemics and
diseases.
(e) New insights have enabled the banks and finance companies to come
up with suitable plans.
(A5) (i) Interview the students of your class regarding the career they would like
to pursue and the reason for selecting that particular career. Collect the
data of your class and analyse the information you have collected.
(ii) To listen well is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well and is
essential to all true conversations. Form a group and have a group
discussion on the topic.
(a) Social Media - Curse or Boon
(b) Women Empowerment and Equality
(c) Climate Change
(A6) Find out job opportunities in the following areas and the skills required
for them.
(a) Clinical Data Management (d) Data Operations and Research
(b) Network Operations (e) Data Entry Operation
(c) Data Processing
qqq
42
1.5 The New Dress
ICE BREAKERS
(i) Write in Column 'B' the description of the clothes you would choose to
wear for the occasions given in Column 'A'.
A B
A birthday party
A prize distribution ceremony at school
A picnic
An entertainment show
(ii) Discuss the criterion of the choice of your clothes with the help of the
following points:
(a) Occasion
(b) Society (people you may meet at the venue)
(c) Availability
(d) Fashion
(e) Your wish/whim
(f) A suggestion or advice by someone (mother, sister, friend etc.).
(g) Any other than the above mentioned reasons
(i) Divide the class into groups. Discuss the role of costumes in enhancing
your personality.
(ii) State whether you agree or disagree with the following statements and
discuss the reasons.
(a) A simple dress makes one's personality look dull.
(b) We should not judge ourselves from the comments we receive from others.
(c) A fashionable and costly dress makes you look rich, intelligent and
beautiful.
(d) We should choose a dress according to the fashion rather than our choice.
43
Virginia Woolf (1882 to 1941, London) was an English novelist
and essayist. She is considered a modernist writer of the 20th century
and pioneer of the ‘stream of consciousness’ as a narrative device.
The glimpses of early modern feminism can easily be traced in
her writing. ‘The Voyage Out’, ‘To the Lighthouse’, ‘Orlando’ and
‘Mrs. Dalloway’ are her remarkable novels. ‘A Haunted House’ is
her famous short story collection from which the present story ‘The
New Dress’ is adapted.
The present story is about a Mabel Waring, who is constantly
thinking about her new yellow dress in negative terms. She herself has
chosen the design, colour and pattern of the dress which she has decided to
wear for a party at Mrs Dalloway. However, at that party she keeps thinking that the dress
is old fashioned and everyone in the party is mocking at her dress. She thinks that she is a
fly at the edge of the saucer, drowning deep and deep, as she comes seriously under the spell
of her own negative mind and in a depression leaves the party. To show Mabel’s suppressed
desires, unfulfilled ambitions and meagre financial conditions of her childhood, Virginia Woolf
has employed the stream of consciousness technique very effectively.
RIGHT signifies The New Dress
---------------------------------
misery : great physical and Mabel had her first serious suspicion that something
mental distress or was wrong as she took her cloak off and Mrs. Barnet, while
discomfort handing her the mirror and touching the brushes and thus
drawing her attention, perhaps rather markedly, to all the
profound : deep or intense appliances for tidying and improving hair, complexion,
clothes, which existed on the dressing table, confirmed the
relentlessly: oppressively suspicion - that it was not right, not quite right, which
constant growing stronger as she went upstairs and springing at
her, with conviction as she greeted Clarissa Dalloway, she
appalling : very bad or went straight to the far end of the room, to a shaded corner
displeasing where a looking-glass hung and looked. No! It was not
RIGHT. And at once the misery which she always tried
to hide, the profound dissatisfaction - the sense she had
had, ever since she was a child, of being inferior to other
people - set upon her, relentlessly, remorselessly, with an
intensity which she could not beat off, as she would when
she woke at night at home, by reading Borrow or Scott;
for oh these men, oh these women, all were thinking-
“What’s Mabel wearing? What a fright she looks! What
a hideous new dress!”- their eyelids flickering as they
came up and then their lids shutting rather tight. It was
her own appalling inadequacy; her cowardice; her mean,
water-sprinkled blood that depressed her. And at once the
44
whole of the room where, for ever so many hours, she sordid : unpleasant( in this
had planned with the little dressmaker how it was to go, context)
seemed sordid, repulsive; and her own drawing-room so repulsive : arousing intense
shabby, and herself, going out, puffed up with vanity as distaste or disgust
she touched the letters on the hall table and said: “How vanity : excessive pride in
dull!” to show off - all this now seemed unutterably or admiration of one’s own
silly, paltry, and provincial. All this had been absolutely appearance or achievements
destroyed, shown up, exploded, the moment she came into
Mrs. Dalloway’s drawing-room. According to Mabel, fashion
means ................................
What she had thought that evening when, sitting over ............................................
the teacups, Mrs. Dalloway’s invitation came, was that,
of course, she could not be fashionable. It was absurd to She was afraid of looking in
pretend it even - fashion meant cut, meant style, meant mirror / glass because
thirty guineas at least - but why not be original? Why not .........................................
be herself, anyhow? And, getting up, she had taken that .........................................
old fashion book of her mother’s, a Paris fashion book
of the time of the Empire, and had thought how much satirical: sarcastic,
prettier, more dignified, and more womanly they were humorously critical
then, and so set herself - oh, it was foolish - trying to pucker: a small fold
be like them, pluming herself in fact, upon being modest
and old-fashioned, and very charming, giving herself up, annul: reduce to nothing
no doubt about it, to an orgy of self-love, which deserved
to be chastised, and so rigged herself out like this.
But she dared not look in the glass. She could not
face the whole horror - the pale yellow, idiotically old-
fashioned silk dress with its long skirt and its high sleeves
and its waist and all the things that looked so charming
in the fashion book, but not on her, not among all these
ordinary people. She felt like a dressmaker’s dummy
standing there, for young people to stick pins into.
“But, my dear, it’s perfectly charming!” Rose Shaw
said, looking her up and down with that little satirical
pucker of the lips which she expected - Rose herself
being dressed in the height of the fashion, precisely like
everybody else, always.
We are all like flies trying to crawl over the edge of the
saucer, Mabel thought, and repeated the phrase as if she
were crossing herself, as if she were trying to find some
spell to annul this pain, to make this agony endurable.
Tags of Shakespeare, lines from books she had read ages
ago, suddenly came to her when she was in agony, and she
repeated them over and over again. “Flies trying to crawl,”
45
What was Mabel’s she repeated. If she could say that over often enough and
imagination about flies? make herself see the flies, she would become numb, chill,
frozen, dumb. Now she could see flies crawling slowly out
dowdy : (especially of a of a saucer of milk with their wings stuck together; and
woman) unfashionable and she strained and strained (standing in front of the looking-
dull in appearance glass, listening to Rose Shaw) to make herself see Rose
decrepit : elderly and Shaw and all the other people there as flies, trying to hoist
infirm themselves out of something, or into something, meagre,
dingy : gloomy and drab insignificant, toiling flies. But she could not see them like
that, not other people. She saw herself like that - she was
Miss Milan’s workroom a fly, but the others were dragonflies, butterflies, beautiful
was ............................... insects, dancing, fluttering, skimming, while she alone
dragged herself up out of the saucer. (Envy and spite, the
Guess the meaning : most detestable of the vices, were her chief faults.)
• suffused
• wrinkles “I feel like some dowdy, decrepit, horribly dingy old
fly,” she said, making Robert Haydon stop just to hear
scrolloping : characterized her say that, just to reassure herself by furbishing up a
by or possessing heavy, poor weak-kneed phrase and so showing how detached
floral ornament (a word she was, how witty, that she did not feel in the least out
coined by Virginia Woolf) of anything. And, of course, Robert Haydon answered
something, quite polite, quite insincere, which she saw
through instantly, and said to herself, directly he went
(again from some book), “Lies, lies, lies!” For a party
makes things either much more real, or much less real,
she thought; she saw in a flash to the bottom of Robert
Haydon’s heart; she saw through everything. She saw
the truth. This was true, this drawing-room, this self, and
the other false. Miss Milan’s little workroom was really
terribly hot, stuffy, sordid. It smelt of clothes and cabbage
cooking; and yet, when Miss Milan put the glass in her
hand, and she looked at herself with the dress on, finished,
an extraordinary bliss shot through her heart. Suffused
with light, she sprang into existence. Rid of cares and
wrinkles, what she had dreamed of herself was there-a
beautiful woman. Just for a second (she had not dared
look longer, Miss Milan wanted to know about the length
of the skirt), there looked at her, framed in the scrolloping
mahogany, a grey-white, mysteriously smiling, charming
girl, the core of herself, the soul of herself; and it was not
vanity only, not only self-love that made her think it good,
tender, and true. Miss Milan said that the skirt could not
well be longer; if anything the skirt, said Miss Milan,
puckering her forehead, considering with all her wits about
her, must be shorter; and she felt, suddenly, honestly, full
46
of love for Miss Milan, much, much fonder of Miss Milan Mabel’s eyes were filled with
than of any one in the whole world, and could have cried tears because ...................
for pity that she should be crawling on the floor with her ...........................................
mouth full of pins, and her face red and her eyes bulging-
that one human being should be doing this for another, Discuss different pessimistic
and she saw them all as human beings merely, and herself thoughts in Mabel’s mind.
going off to her party, and Miss Milan pulling the cover
over the canary’s cage, or letting him pick a hemp-seed weevils : small beetles /
from between her lips, and the thought of it, of this side insects with an elongated
of human nature and its patience and its endurance and snout
its being content with such miserable, scanty, sordid, little
pleasures filled her eyes with tears. Boadicea : a queen of the
British Celtic Iceni tribe
And now the whole thing had vanished. The dress, who led an uprising against
the room, the love, the pity, the scrolloping looking-glass, the occupying forces of the
and the canary’s cage-all had vanished, and here she was Roman empire in AD 60 or
in a corner of Mrs. Dalloway’s drawing-room, suffering 61
tortures, woken wide awake to reality. simpered: smiled in
an affectedly coy or
But it was all so paltry, weak-blooded, and petty- ingratiating manner
minded to care so much at her age with two children, to slouched : stood, moved
be still so utterly dependent on people’s opinions and not or sat in a lazy, drooping
have principles or convictions, not to be able to say as way
other people did, “There’s Shakespeare! There’s death! slinking : moving quietly
We’re all weevils in a captain’s biscuit” - or whatever it with gliding steps
was that people did say.
She faced herself straight in the glass; she pecked
at her left shoulder; she issued out into the room, as if
spears were thrown at her yellow dress from all sides. But
instead of looking fierce or tragic, as Rose Shaw would
have done-Rose would have looked like Boadicea-she
looked foolish and self-conscious, and simpered like
a schoolgirl and slouched across the room, positively
slinking, as if she were a beaten mongrel, and looked at a
picture, an engraving. As if one went to a party to look at
a picture! Everybody knew why she did it - it was from
shame, from humiliation.
“Now the fly’s in the saucer,” she said to herself,
“right in the middle, and can’t get out, and the milk,”
she thought, rigidly staring at the picture, “is sticking its
wings together.”
“It’s so old-fashioned,” she said to Charles Burt,
making him stop (which by itself he hated) on his way to
talk to some one else.
47
Guess the meaning : She meant, or she tried to make herself think that
• shoved she meant, that it was the picture and not her dress, that
• veneer was old-fashioned. And one word of praise, one word of
• ruffled affection from Charles would have made all the difference
to her at the moment. If he had only said, “Mabel, you’re
odious: extremely looking charming tonight!” it would have changed her
unpleasant life. But then she ought to have been truthful and direct.
vacillating: wavering Charles said nothing of the kind, of course. He was malice
between different itself. He always saw through one, especially if one were
opinions or actions feeling particularly mean, paltry, or feeble-minded.
Guess the meaning : “Mabel’s got a new dress!” he said, and the poor fly was
• scarlet fever absolutely shoved into the middle of the saucer. Really, he
• self-loathing would like her to drown, she believed. He had no heart,
no fundamental kindness, only a veneer of friendliness.
Miss Milan was much more real, much kinder. If only one
could feel that and stick to it, always. “Why,” she asked
herself-replying to Charles much too pertly, letting him
see that she was out of temper, or “ruffled” as he called it
(“Rather ruffled?” he said and went on to laugh at her with
some woman over there)-“Why,” she asked herself, “can’t
I feel one thing always, feel quite sure that Miss Milan is
right, and Charles wrong and stick to it, feel sure about the
canary and pity and love and not be whipped all round in
a second by coming into a room full of people?” It was her
odious, weak, vacillating character again, always giving
at the critical moment and not being seriously interested
in conchology, etymology, botany, archeology, cutting up
potatoes and watching them fructify like Mary Dennis,
like Violet Searle.
Then Mrs. Holman, seeing her standing there, bore
down upon her. Of course a thing like a dress was beneath
Mrs. Holman’s notice, with her family always tumbling
downstairs or having the scarlet fever. Could Mabel tell
her if Elmthorpe was ever let for August and September?
Oh, it was a conversation that bored her unutterably!—
it made her furious to be treated like a house agent or
a messenger boy, to be made use of. Not to have value,
that was it, she thought, trying to grasp something hard,
something real, while she tried to answer sensibly about
the bathroom and the south aspect and the hot water to the
top of the house; and all the time she could see little bits
of her yellow dress in the round looking-glass which made
them all the size of boot-buttons or tadpoles; and it was
amazing to think how much humiliation and agony and
48
self-loathing and effort and passionate ups and downs of detached : aloof,
feeling were contained in a thing the size of a threepenny having no interest or
bit. And what was still odder, this thing, this Mabel involvement
Waring, was separate, quite disconnected; and though gesticulating : using
Mrs. Holman (the black button) was leaning forward gestures, movement of
and telling her how her eldest boy had strained his heart parts of body, especially
running, she could see her, too, quite detached in the hand or head
looking-glass, and it was impossible that the black dot,
leaning forward, gesticulating, should make the yellow grudgingly : in a
dot, sitting solitary, self-centred, feel what the black dot reluctant or resentful
was feeling, yet they pretended. manner
creaking : making a
“So impossible to keep boys quiet”-that was the kind harsh, high-pitched sound
of thing one said.
cormorants:
And Mrs. Holman, who could never get enough large diving seabirds
sympathy and snatched what little there was greedily,
as if it were her right (but she deserved much more for despised : scorned, hated
there was her little girl who had come down this morning
with a swollen knee-joint), took this miserable offering skimping: expending
and looked at it suspiciously, grudgingly, as if it were very little or less than
a halfpenny when it ought to have been a pound and necessary
put it away in her purse, must put up with it, mean and
miserly though it was, times being hard, so very hard; and
on she went, creaking, injured Mrs. Holman, about the
girl with the swollen-joints. Ah, it was tragic, this greed,
this clamour of human beings, like a row of cormorants,
barking and flapping their wings for sympathy-it was
tragic, could one have felt it and not merely pretended to
feel it!
But in her yellow dress to-night she could not wring
out one drop more; she wanted it all, all for herself. She
knew (she kept on looking into the glass, dipping into that
dreadfully showing-up blue pool) that she was condemned,
despised, left like this in a backwater, because of her
being like this a feeble, vacillating creature; and it seemed
to her that the yellow dress was a penance which she had
deserved, and if she had been dressed like Rose Shaw,
in lovely, clinging green with a ruffle of swansdown, she
would have deserved that; and she thought that there was
no escape for her-none what so ever. But it was not her
fault altogether, after all. It was being one of a family
of ten; never having money enough, always skimping
and paring; and her mother carrying great cans, and the
linoleum worn on the stair edges, and one sordid little
49
catastrophic: involving domestic tragedy after another-nothing catastrophic,
or causing sudden great the sheep farm failing, but not utterly; her eldest brother
damage or suffering marrying beneath him but not very much - there was no
petered out: diminished romance, nothing extreme about them all. They petered
or came to an end out respectably in seaside resorts; every watering-place
gradually had one of her aunts even now asleep in some lodging
with the front windows not quite facing the sea. That was
Sir Henry Lawrence: so like them-they had to squint at things always. And
Brigadier-General Sir she had done the same-she was just like her aunts. For
Henry Lawrence was a all her dreams of living in India, married to some hero
British military officer, like Sir Henry Lawrence, some empire builder (still the
surveyor, administrator sight of a native in a turban filled her with romance), she
and statesman in British had failed utterly. She had married Hubert, with his safe,
India. permanent underling’s job in the Law Courts, and they
managed tolerably in a smallish house, without proper
magpies : a very long maids, and hash when she was alone or just bread and
tailed black and white butter, but now and then Mrs Holman was off, thinking
bird her the most dried-up, unsympathetic twig she had ever
met, absurdly dressed, too, and would tell every one about
Mabel’s fantastic appearance - now and then, thought
Mabel Waring, left alone on the blue sofa, punching the
cushion in order to look occupied, for she would not join
Charles Burt and Rose Shaw, chattering like magpies
and perhaps laughing at her by the fireplace - now and
then, there did come to her delicious moments, reading
50
the other night in bed, for instance, or down by the sea on Easter : the most
the sand in the sun, at Easter - let her recall it - a great important festival of
tuft of pale sand-grass standing all twisted like a shock the Christian Church
of spears against the sky, which was blue like a smooth celebrating the
china egg, so firm, so hard, and then the melody of the resurrection of Jesus
waves -“Hush, hush,” they said, and the children’s shouts Christ
paddling - yes, it was a divine moment, and there she lay,
she felt, in the hand of the Goddess who was the world; Find the meaning :
rather a hard-hearted, but very beautiful Goddess, a little • crest of a wave
lamb laid on the altar (one did think these silly things, • by degrees
and it didn’t matter so long as one never said them). And
also with Hubert sometimes she had quite unexpectedly London Library : an
- carving the mutton for Sunday lunch, for no reason, independent lending library
opening a letter, coming into a room - divine moments, in London established in
when she said to herself (for she would never say this 1841 by Thomas Carlyle.
to anybody else), “This is it. This has happened. This is Strand : narrow street at the
it!” And the other way about it was equally surprising - edge of the sea, lake or large
that is, when everything was arranged - music, weather, river
holidays, every reason for happiness was there - then
nothing happened at all. One wasn’t happy. It was flat,
just flat, that was all.
Her wretched self again, no doubt! She had always
been a fretful, weak, unsatisfactory mother, a wobbly wife,
lolling about in a kind of twilight existence with nothing
very clear or very bold, or more one thing than another,
like all her brothers and sisters, except perhaps Herbert
- they were all the same poor water-veined creatures
who did nothing. Then in the midst of this creeping,
crawling life, suddenly she was on the crest of a wave.
That wretched fly - where had she read the story that
kept coming into her mind about the fly and the saucer? -
struggled out. Yes, she had those moments. But now that
she was forty, they might come more and more seldom.
By degrees she would cease to struggle any more. But
that was deplorable! That was not to be endured! That
made her feel ashamed of herself!
She would go to the London Library tomorrow. She
would find some wonderful, helpful, astonishing book,
quite by chance, a book by a clergyman, by an American
no one had ever heard of; or she would walk down the
Strand and drop, accidentally, into a hall where a miner
was telling about the life in the pit, and suddenly she
would become a new person. She would be absolutely
51
wobbly : unstedy, shaky transformed. She would wear a uniform; she would be
called Sister Somebody; she would never give a thought
What does the last sentence to clothes again. And for ever after she would be perfectly
suggest? clear about Charles Burt and Miss Milan and this room and
that room; and it would be always, day after day, as if she
were lying in the sun or carving the mutton. It would be it!
So she got up from the blue sofa, and the yellow button
in the looking-glass got up too, and she waved her hand
to Charles and Rose to show them she did not depend on
them one scrap, and the yellow button moved out of the
looking-glass, and all the spears were gathered into her
breast as she walked towards Mrs. Dalloway and said
“Good night.”
“But it’s too early to go,” said Mrs. Dalloway, who
was always so charming.
“I’m afraid I must,” said Mabel Waring. “But,” she
added in her weak, wobbly voice which only sounded
ridiculous when she tried to strengthen it, “I have enjoyed
myself enormously.”
‘I have enjoyed myself,” she said to Mr. Dalloway,
whom she met on the stairs.
“Lies, lies, lies!” she said to herself, going downstairs,
and “Right in the saucer!” she said to herself as she
thanked Mrs. Barnet for helping her and wrapped herself,
round and round and round, in the Chinese cloak she had
worn these twenty years.
- Virginia Woolf
BRAINSTORMING
(A1) (i) Narrate in your words the picture imagined by Mabel as she thinks herself
in the party as a fly at the edge of the saucer.
(ii) There are a few other characters mentioned in the story. Discuss the way
their reactions help us to understand the inferiority complex of Mabel.
(A2) (i) Pick out the sentences from the story which describe the ambience of the
party at Mrs. Dalloway’s place.
(ii) Mabel is thinking too much of her dress.
Propose five sentences supporting the above statement.
(iii) Critically analyze Mabel’s weak economic conditions in the past as one of
the reasons that led her to choose the old-fashioned dress.
52
(iv) The cause of Miss Mabel’s disappointment is not only her poor background
in the past but her too much bookishness also. Substantiate.
(v) Do you appreciate Mabel’s tendency of deciding her own value from the
comments given by others? Explain your views.
(A3) (i) Write the synonyms for the word ‘dress’ by filling appropriate letters in
the blanks. One is done for you.
(a) a t t i r e (b) _ _ r_ _
(c) _ _ _ t _ _ e (d) _ _ r _ _ _ t
(e) _ _ t _ _ t (f) _ _ _ a _ _ l
(ii) Conchology means the scientific study or collection of mollusc shells.
Refer to the dictionary and find out the meanings of -
• Etymology • Archaeology
(A4) (i) Use the correct tense form of the verbs given in the brackets and rewrite
the sentences.
(a) She (take/takes/took/had taken) that old fashion book of
her mother a few months back.
(b) She (pecking/ pecks/ pecked) at her left shoulder for quite
some time.
(c) One human should (done /doing/be doing) this for another
always.
(d) All this (will be/ is / have been) destroyed in a few years.
(e) She (feels/felt/will be feeling) like a dressmaker’s dummy
standing there.
(ii) Do as directed.
(a) Lata will sing tonight. (Make it less certain.)
(b) You should wear your uniform. (Show ability.)
(c) Sandeep may study to clear the examination. (Make it obligatory/
compulsory.)
(d) I can do it. (Make a sentence seeking permission.)
(iii) (a) Frame three rules for the students of your college.
(b) Frame three sentences giving advice to your younger brother.
(iv) Fill in the blanks with appropriate modal auxiliaries according to the
situation given in the following sentences.
(a) Take an umbrella. It rain later.
(b) People walk on the grass.
53
(c) I ask you a question?
(d) The signal has turned red. You wait.
(e) I am going to the library. I find my friend there.
(A5) (i) Read the sentence ‘we are all like flies….’. The paragraph describes the
dejected thoughts that Miss Mabel carries in her mind. All the earlier
paragraphs are in a continuity of a story line. The next paragraph begins
with, ‘I feel like….’ again resumes to a story. The author has moved in
the mind of the character and out of it very smoothly without any
intimation or change in the language or tense. Similarly, she has moved
in the past years of Miss Mabel’s life. This is called ‘stream of consciousness’
technique.
(ii) Read the sentence from the text - What a hideous new dress!
This is an exclamation. It can be written as a simple sentence 'The new dress
is very hideous'.
Find out few more exclamatory sentences from the story and transform them
into assertive sentences.
(iii) Virginia Woolf has created many characters other than Miss Mabel with
great skill. Write a character sketch of any one of them.
(iv) 'Clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them.' Expand the idea in
your own words.
(A6) Go to library and read the following books:
(a) 'A Haunted House' by Virginia Woolf
(b) 'Mrs. Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf
(A7) Find out information about career opportunities in the following fields:
(a) Fashion designing
(b) Dress designing
(c) Textile industry
(d) Garment industry
(e) Image consultancy
(f) Psychology and Psychiatry
qqq
54
1.6 Into the Wild
ICE BREAKERS
N arrate in your class any of the incidents of your life when you were extremely
terrified or awestruck.
C omplete the given table regarding the factors/situations/reasons - why you
sometimes get scared and the factors that add to it. Give possible solutions.
Sr. no Reasons Factors which add to it Solutions
1. While discussing about At midnight/In the Avoid such discussions/
strange creatures absence of parents stories as they are
baseless
2.
3.
G iven below are various activities which you can pursue as your hobby, passion,
or profession. Complete the table accordingly.
Sr. Activities Hobby Passion Profession Reason /Challenge/Both
no.
1. Painting (R) I can express myself well
through the strokes of brush
2. Travelling (R) In tourism, there is great
demand for professional tourist
guides.
3. Wild life (C) In the age of computers limited
photography professional scope
4. Conserving
environment
5. Bird-
Watching
M atch the following ‘Wild-Life Sanctuaries’ with their locations.
Wild Life Sanctuary Location
1. Bandipur National Park (a) Uttarakhand
2. Kaziranga National Park (b) Madhya Pradesh
3. Jim Corbet National Park (c) Karnataka
4. Ranthambore National Park (d) Assam
5. Kanha National Park (e) Rajasthan
55
Kiran Purandare (born 1961) After B.Com, he studied Environmental
Studies at Jordanhill College of Education in Scotland. He is a recipient
of the ‘Sahitya Puraskar’. Pune’s Bhai Madhav Bagal Award and Best
Literature Award given by Cultural Department of Maharashtra State
for his ‘Sakha Nagzira’. He spent 400 days inside Nagzira and nearby
forest areas and wrote this award winning book. This excerpt has been
taken from the same. He is a wild-life expert, a bird watcher, a writer
and honorary wild life warden in Maharashtra. He is also the founder
of Nisarg Wedh Organisation, which works for nature conservation and
community work around Nagzira, Navegaon, a Tiger Reserve in Bhandara
and Gondia districts. He also founded Kika’s Bird Club in order to spread
bird farming which is very popular among school-going children of Maharashtra.
(Part I) As the name suggests, the excerpt is an amazing experience of the writer where
Kiran Purandare, the solitary traveller, is completely lost in the jungles of Umbarzara. He
narrates how he lost his way at the fall of the dusk and the terrifying turmoil he underwent
thereafter. Shouting for help would literally mean ‘crying in the wilderness’. He also gives a
detailed description of how he found his way towards the Pitezari.
(Part II) This part has been extracted from CN Traveller Magazine published by Land
Rover India. It is about Shaaz Jung, known for his wild life photography. It briefs us about his
entry into this world of wild life photography, the insight that he received during this journey
regarding the loss of the habitat of those heroes of the jungle and the genuine efforts that he
took by establishing BCRTI, for the conservation of forests by educating the local rural folks
and providing them with a sound reliable source of income.
hide : a place built to look Into the Wild
like its surrounding
(Part – I) Lost in the Jungle
avifauna : birds of a
particular region, habitat or The eight-and-a-half-hour-long day inside the hide
geological period was as fruitful as the Jambha tree standing tall on the
edge of Umbarzara. Before wrapping up my day at this
camouflaged : disguised by natural waterhole, I took entries of the avifauna in my
covering it to make it blend field notes. Since I was alone, I rushed to Pitezari village
in with the surroundings where I was stationed. I camouflaged the hide, took
my essentials, came out of the hide and stretched out to
Explain: my heart’s content. I lifted my camera bag and took the
I was alone here like a fox. familiar trail to Pitezari. Negotiating the webbed leaves of
Teakwood and Moha trees, trying to make minimal sound,
I was treading cautiously among the woods. Walking
alone in a jungle needs more alertness than walking with
a companion. I was alone here like a fox. Following the
trail silently, watching with wide-open eyes, my ears were
grasping a variety of sounds just when a familiar sound
stunned me…
‘Khyak! Khyak! KhyakoSS Khyak!’
It was a Langur alarm call. The leader of the gang of
Langurs was sitting on the tall tree making alarm calls
56
out of fear for life. Rest of the Langur brigade continued petrified : very frightened
raising the alarm calls. The network of alarm calls was Guess the meaning :
expanding its range as the petrified Langurs speeded to the • upheaval
trees near and far and secured their places on treetops. All • predator
this upheaval was created by only one animal’s presence- apex : topmost
a Leopard. Many animals make alarm calls when they see lair : den, secret place
a predator- Tiger or Leopard nearby. The Langur is most
reliable when it comes to finding clues about the presence legion : a great number of
of the apex predators in the jungle. The mighty elusive people or things
Leopard of Umbarzara was out of its lair. He was on the scat : here, it means animal
prowl. The stealthily moving figure in spotted gold-black droppings
cloak was spied by these Langurs. Even the small ones
from the legion of Langurs were giving alarm calls. Guess the meaning :
• hovering
‘Chyak! Chyak!’ • antelope
I stayed put. Gauged the leader Langur’s target sight sanctum sanctorum : the
and scanned the area visually. Took some steps. Stopped holy of holies, a place, region
again. A fresh scat was lying before me on the trail. The where few are allowed as the
bluish-purple flies were hovering over it. I was sure that secret / important work is
the Leopard was somewhere near. The distant alarm call done
of four-horned antelope was adding to the chaos. I barely
walked around 15 metres and stopped. I had apparently instinctively : without
entered in the sanctum sanctorum of a miracle called conscious thought, by
Leopard. But the big cat was not visible. It is an elusive natural response
animal. The surroundings were reminding me that I was Choose the correct option.
all alone time and again. As I moved forward on the trail spooked :
to Pitezari, the fading alarm calls were still heard in the (1) frightened
background. I could tell instinctively that the Leopard (2) happy
had moved away. (3) angry
haven : a place of safety or
Meanwhile, I saw a man standing at a distance with a refuge
stick in his hand. As I approached, he appeared spooked stacked : Find the contextual
due to alarm calls of the Leopard. We greeted each other. meaning from the dictionary
He was Raju Iskape from Pitezari. He had come to collect
logs but retreated due to the Leopard’s movement. Raju
was amazed at my regular solitary visits to Umbarzara,
the haven for Tigers, Leopards and Sloth Bears. We
stopped under a Kusum tree to take a break. We both felt
a bit relaxed. Now we were four eyes, four hands with a
stick. Then we both resumed our walking tour.
There was one tiny track that broke out of the main
trail. “I will take this route, you go straight,” said Raju
and turned right. I kept walking straight until I climbed
a familiar hillock. I crossed the cement pillar and stones
stacked by Forest Development Corporation to mark the
boundary of the forest compartment. Took another trail
57
gorge : a narrow gully after climbing down. Walked across a beautiful Mahua tree
between hillocks loaded with reddish-brown leaves. The ground under the
deciduous : having trees tree was cleaned very well. The thought instantly flashed in
that shed leaves in the dry my mind- ‘I’d lost my way’. Next moment, I found another
season dusky trail. Hastily I took that trail which took me from a
tropical : of the tropics narrow gorge to an open field. The area was surrounded by
to one’s heart’s content: hillocks of dry deciduous tropical forest. I turned back to
to the fullest level of spot the sun. Now, the geographical west was set. The dusky
satisfaction trail had vanished. Good Heavens! I was lost. Completely
lost in this jungle, That too at a very dreadful time! The sun
frantic: hurried and was melting down like a fleeting runner.
excited
Soaked in my own sweat, I felt like shouting to my
What is called ‘silver heart’s content. But there was no other soul to listen to
lining’ of the trail by the my sound in this wilderness. I had two bags with me.
writer? Why? The Shabnam bag having the camera and the other was a
small colourful hand-made bag used in villages to carry
Guess the meaning : tiffin. The tiffin still had some stuff, but I didn’t feel like
• In a jiffy having it. The blossoming Boxwood trees, the Bhoop
Bhoop sound of Coucal bird, the song of Robin bird, all
appeared alien to me.
It was more than an hour and I was still there searching
for a suitable tree to climb and get secured. “Turn back to
the trail you left,” my mind was telling me. But there were
no signs of the trail. I had no other way to climb the hillock
before me. There were more hillocks, and some more
around the one I was standing. Near my feet were the dried-
up droppings of Sloth Bear. “The Sloth Bear of Umbarzara
must be out in open sniffing for food,” I cautioned myself.
Thinking of averting all sorts of eventuality, I made a
move. I ran down the hillock that I had climbed up at a
frantic speed. The west was to my right-hand side now.
The evening breeze flew through my wet curled hair. My
stomach was aching. I kept walking in hope.
After around 50 steps I found a bright red soil trail. I
found my silver lining on this trail. There were marks of
bicycle wheel on this trail. That was a big consolation for
me. “There must be a village nearby,” I reassured myself.
More questions resurfaced, “How far is the village? And
where? In which direction?”
I climbed one more hillock and tried to locate signs of
human civilisation. My legs were trembling. As I reached
the top of the hill, I jumped with joy. I heard the sounds of
people talking in the loudspeaker. In a jiffy, I ran down
58
the hill, towards the sound with full vigour. I stumbled and slumped : fell heavily
fell down. Saw droppings of Blue Bulls nearby. Struggled,
stood up and decided which direction to move on. The Guess the meaning :
signs of civilisation were visible. The tiny sleepy village of • felines
Pitezari was visible through the green woods. The lantern sagging : drooping lags
of Rajiram Bhalavi’s farm, the loudspeaker installed for gash : long, deep cut
Keshav Bhalavi’s marriage, all were in clear sight. Turned
left to spot the village lake and familiar hillock ‘Suihudaki’.
The dog barked to welcome me to the village.
The first thing I did was to take a bath. The shaking of
limbs had lessened a bit. The stomach ache started again.
Ate to the full and then slumped onto the cot. Lying
awake looking at the star-studded sky, I spoke to myself,
“There still exists a jungle where we can get lost, isn’t this
our good luck?”
Taken from ‘Sakha Nagzira’ - by Kiran Purandare
(Part – II) Tracking the Panther of Nagarhole
Shaaz Jung is a wildlife photographer, cinemato-
grapher, big cat tracker, man-animal conflict resolution
seeker and lodge owner– all rolled into one. When he’s
away from the jungles of Nagarhole, officially called The
Rajiv Gandhi National Park, he’s leading photography
safaris in Africa or showcasing his work at Art Galleries
in capital cities and speaking to those interested in
conserving the planet’s riches.
Shaaz recalls with great clarity the incident that
ultimately leads to his answering the call of the felines over
a career dedicated to finance. “It was somewhere around
sunset. We were at a junction. The deer were calling,” he
says, “we went around a blind turn,” he continues, “and up
ahead on the path was this old leopard. You could tell he
was past his prime. The jungle had taken a toll on him. He
only had three canines. His eyes were sagging. Close to
this leopard was another very young, good looking male
who was soon to come into his prime. It was like looking
at the past and the present. It was clear that there was
going to be a fight. Unfortunately, the sun was setting,
and we had to leave. But the next morning, I went back
to the spot. Sitting on a high rock was that young leopard.
Blood was dripping from a gash across his face. He sat
there like he was ‘king of the jungle’. I knew right then
that he had taken over, that it was the beginning of a new
journey for him. And for me.”
59
Guess the meaning : Photographs of that leopard, the victor, Scarface,
• chronicler as Shaaz named him, not only made Shaaz famous
among India’s wildlife community, but also led to
piece together : create Shaaz’s enviable reputation as a chronicler of the wild.
something by joining the “Through my journey of photographing Scarface, I have
separate parts of it together discovered other leopards, his mates and discovered his
nemises– tigers. I also discovered the current protagonist
Shaaz named the leopards of my work–Saya–while tracking Scarface. This is the
(1) world’s first black panther, the behaviour of which is
(2) being documented so intimately on camera, by tracking
(3) its movements. So far all the research on the animal has
been done through camera traps.” Through many months
incursions: attacks of toil, Shaaz has managed to collect precious footage,
including that of the animal mating, to piece together the
The visitors are welcomed incredible landscape of a black panther’s life.
because ............................
.......................................... Saya, Scarface and Pardus, the leopard that lost
... to Scarface, have also led Shaaz down a different path
Find : of discovery. Learning about them and the loss to their
The Bison is ....................... habitat has led Shaaz to create the Buffer Conflict
........................................... Resolution Trust of India (BCRTI). It’s an agency that
educates villagers who live on the fringe of the forest on
the importance of conservation. “We are in the heart of
the man-animal conflict zone,” explains Shaaz. “There
is no specifc buffer zone here around Nagarhole. The
core area of the forest ends where the fields begin. In dry
season elephant and wild boar incursions into fields are
very common. Older leopards, like Pardus, who have lost
territory in the forest often carry away livestock from
villages.” This creates resentment among locals towards
the animals on occasions leading to unpleasant situations.
Putting tourist currency to good use, under the
BCRTI umbrella, Shaaz provides locals with vocational
training, with the aim of educating locals on the merits
of conservation and to help them benefit from tourist
currency. The visitors at the resort are welcome to
volunteer to teach a skills training class of their choice.
The acquired skills enable locals to find employment with
any of the numerous wildlife resorts in the region, if not in
a faraway city.
Madegowda is one such local agriculturist who
is trained at BCRTI and is now a certified naturalist
employed by ‘The Bison’. “In the past, I’ve lost almost
80 percent of a season’s yield of sugarcane to such animal
attacks. I used to hate them. But now I’ve learnt how
60
important these animals are and the value of protecting them,” he says. “I have known
these jungles for 35 years. I know where the animals are and I realise I can guide
visitors and get paid for it. In a way, the animals are paying me back.”
“The forests have taught me many things. For instance, listening is a sense far more
important than sight. You have to switch off your vehicle, sit and listen, for the forest
is constantly communicating– through the voices of birds and animals,” he explains.
“Tracking an animal also teaches you life lessons. The black panther has taught me
patience. But, above all, it has taught me to never stop discovering. There are just so
many amazing experiences to learn and share with the world.”
- CN Traveller Magazine published by Land Rover India
BRAINSTORMING
(A1) (i) In pairs, discuss the professions and challenges one can take happily if
one is really passionate about the job.
(ii) In groups, organize a role play activity associated with ‘Wild Life Expert’/
‘Wild Life Photographer’/‘Wild Life Conservator’, explaining the differences
and similarities involved in their profession.
(A2) (i) Arrange the following incidents in a proper sequential order as they have
occurred in Part-I:
(a) Writer realized that he was lost in the woods.
(b) The Langurs saw the leopard.
(c) The author was moving from the jungle as quietly as possible, finding his
way through the thicket.
(d) The author met a villager.
(ii) Correct the False statements. (Part-II)
(a) Earlier Shaaz was in the field of finance.
(b) BCRTI was founded out of the genuine urge to conserve the habitat of
the wild life.
(c) Shaaz failed to utilize the finance incurred out of tourism.
(d) According to the local agriculturist seeing is more essential than listening.
61
(iii) Complete the given web (Part-I).
Signs of the
vicinity of
the village
(iv) Complete the following (Part-II).
1
Responsibilities 2
handled by 3
Shaaz
4
(v) Complete the flow-chart stating the reactions of the petrified Langurs due
to the presence of the Leopard.
Khyak-alarm call
(vi) Complete the web, describing each step taken by the writer as a
solitary traveller while moving in the jungle with great precaution:
Camouflaging
the hide
Precautions Grasping various
taken by the sounds
writer
(vii) Complete the table explaining the qualities that you would like to
imbibe from Nature within yourself and provide the reasons for the
same:
From Quality Reasons
Trees
Streams
(A3) (i) Choose appropriate phrases/expressions from the extract given in the
brackets. (time and again, to one’s heart’s content, frantic speed, in
a jiffy)
(a) I was on diet for some days but today I am going to eat .
(b) Every mother scolds her children for the overuse of the
mobile phone.
62
(c) All their educational problems were sorted out because of
the funds given by an NGO.
(d) Raj ran at a to catch the train.
(A4) (i) Begin the following sentences with the words given in the brackets.
(a) I can guide visitors.
(Visitors)
(b) Animals are paying me back.
(I)
(c) The behaviour of the first black panther is being documented.
(They)
(d) All the research on the animal has been done through camera traps.
(They)
(e) Madegowda is employed by The Bison.
(The Bison)
(f) The surroundings were reminding me.
(I)
(g) Raju was amazed at my solitary visits to Umbarzara.
(My solitary)
(h) I found a bright red soil trial.
(A)
(i) Older leopards like Pardus carry away livestock from villages.
(Livestock)
(j) I have lost almost 80 percent of a season’s yield of sugarcane.
(80 percent)
(k) Tracking an animal also teaches you life lessons.
(Life lessons)
(l) Many things have been taught to me by the forests.
(The forests)
(m) Resentment among locals towards the animals is created by this.
(This)
(ii) Rewrite the sentences by using ‘not only….but also’:
(a) The petrified Langurs speeded to the trees near and far and secured
their places on the tree tops.
(b) Umbarzara is the haven for Tigers, Leopards and Sloth Bears.
63
(c) I crossed the cement pillar and stones stacked by the Forest
Development Corporation.
(A5) (i) Your college has decided to celebrate the World Environment Day
Mr Kiran Purandare has been invited as the ‘Chief Guest’ for
the event. Imagine you are the Secretary of the ‘Nature Club’ of
your college and you have to conduct an interview of Mr Kiran
Purandare. Frame 8/10 questions for the same.
(ii) Imagine you have visited the jungles of Nagarhole. Write a report,
to be published in your college magazine / in a local newspaper.
(iii) Shaaz has contributed towards conserving the wild animals and their
habitat. Your college has decided to spread the message in the society
and arrange a rally. Prepare an ‘Appeal’ to ensure maximum
participation informing about the day, date and other relevant details.
(iv) Nature is a great teacher and a guide.
Complete the mind map as instructed as per the titled concept:
NATURE TEACHES
Most
Importantly
never to stop
discovering
(A6) (i) Surf the net and obtain more information about the conservation
work done by Shaaz. Prepare posters to inspire others and display
them on your college noticeboard.
(ii) Find out the information about the qualification and eligibility
required in the professions related to wild life such as …
• Forest officer / Ranger • Wildlife photographer
• Environmentalist • Geologist
• Tour Manager
qqq
64
1.7 Why we Travel
ICE BREAKERS
Sh are your views on how travelling can be a hobby.
D iscuss in the class the benefits of travelling and complete the web.
To be prompt and quick To prepare / organize
Travel
Teaches
You
To be careful and cautious
M ake a list of your expectations when you travel to some new place:
(a) Food should be delicious and available whenever hungry.
(b)
(c)
(d)
Discuss in the class the various types of travels. Add your own to ones given
below:
Solo
travel
Culinary
travel
65
Siddarth Pico Raghavan Iyer, (born 1957) at Oxford, England
is known as Pico Iyer. He is a British –born American essayist
and novelist and is best known for his travel writing. He was
awarded the famous Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts
in 2005 and has won the accolade of Honorary Doctor of
Humane Letters by the Chapman University. He has authored
several books including Video Night in Kathmandu(1988), The
Lady and The Monk (1991), The Global Soul (2000) and The
Man within My Head (2012). He is working as an essayist
for Time since 1986. He also publishes regularly in The New
York Review of Books and The New York Times and other renowned
publications.
In his classic essay ‘Why we Travel’, Pico Iyer explores the reasons for his passion
to travel and shares them with the readers. He quotes famous writers and puts forth his
own observations while probing into his own instinct to travel. Enormously interesting,
the extract is equally inspiring for the readers who are looking for the adventures in
their lives.
Why we Travel
Guess the meaning : We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel,
riches are differently dispersed next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and
eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers
George Santayana: George will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can,
Agustin Nicolas Ruiz in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe
de Santayana y Borras whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel,
(December 16, 1863 – in essence, to become young fools again-to slow time
September 26, 1952), was a down and get taken in, and fall in love once more. The
Spanish philosopher, essayist, beauty of this whole process was best described, perhaps,
poet and novelist. before people even took to frequent flying, by George
Santayana in his lapidary essay, “The Philosophy of
lapidary: relating to the Travel.” We “need sometimes,” the Harvard philosopher
engraving, cutting, or wrote, “to escape into open solitudes, into aimlessness,
polishing of stones and gems into the moral holiday of running some pure hazard, in
(of language- elegant and order to sharpen the edge of life, to taste hardship, and
concise.) to be compelled to work desperately for a moment at no
matter what.”
solitudes : a lonely or
uninhabited place.
running some pure hazard:
accepting a risk or danger
Guess the difference: Few of us ever forget the connection between “travel”
• travel and travail and “travail,” Travel in that sense guides us toward a
better balance of wisdom and compassion - of seeing the
66
world clearly, and yet feeling it truly. For seeing without Differentiate :
feeling can obviously be uncaring; while feeling without • tourist and traveller
seeing can be blind. Yet for me the first great joy of
travelling is simply the luxury of leaving all my beliefs
and certainties at home, and seeing everything I thought I
knew in a different light, and from a crooked angle.
Though it’s fashionable nowadays to draw a sovereign : supreme and
distinction between the “tourist” and the “traveler,” effective
perhaps the real distinction lies between those who leave
their assumptions at home, and those who don’t. Among Guess the difference :
those who don’t, a tourist is just someone who complains, • provisional and provincial
“Nothing here is the way it is at home,” while a traveler
is one who grumbles, “Everything here is the same as it
is in Cairo - or Cuzco or Kathmandu.” It’s all very much
the same.
But for the rest of us, the sovereign freedom of
travelling comes from the fact that it whirls you around
and turns you upside down, and stands everything you
took for granted on its head. If a diploma can famously be
a passport (to a journey through hard realism), a passport
can be a diploma (for a crash course in cultural relativism).
And the first lesson we learn on the road, whether we like
it or not, is how provisional and provincial are the things
we imagine to be universal.
We travel, then, in part just to shake up our complacencies: satisfaction
complacencies by seeing all the moral and political of one with oneself or one’s
urgencies, the life-and-death dilemmas, that we seldom own achievements
have to face at home. And we travel to fill in the gaps
left by tomorrow’s headlines. When you drive down the abstraction: something that
streets of Port-au-Prince, for example, where there is exists only as an idea
almost no paving your notions of the Internet and a “one
world order” grow usefully revised. Travel is the best way
we have of rescuing the humanity of places, and saving
them from abstraction and ideology.
And in the process, we also get saved from abstraction
ourselves, and come to see how much we can bring to the
places we visit, and how much we can become a kind of
carrier pigeon - an anti-Federal Express, if you like - in
transporting back and forth what every culture needs. I
67
Michael Jordan : find that I always take Michael Jordan posters to Kyoto,
an American former and bring woven ikebana baskets back to California.
professional basketball
player But more significantly, we carry values and beliefs
Kyoto : once the capital of and news to the places we go, and in many parts of the
Japan, now is a city on the world, we become walking video screens and living
island of Honshu newspapers, the only channels that can take people out
ikebana: Japanese art of of the censored limits of their homelands. In closed or
flower arrangement impoverished places, like Pagan or Lhasa or Havana, we
impoverished : reduced to are the eyes and ears of the people we meet, their only
poverty contact with the world outside and, very often, the closest,
quite literally, they will ever come to Michael Jackson
Proust : a French novelist, or Bill Clinton. Not the least of the challenges of travel,
critic and essayist, one of therefore, is learning how to import - and export - dreams
the most influential authors with tenderness.
of the 20th century (10 July
1871 - 18 November 1922) By now all of us have heard (too often) the old Proust
subtler : more difficult to line about how the real voyage of discovery consists not
grasp in seeing new places but in seeing with new eyes. Yet one
of the subtler beauties of travel is that it enables you to
resuscitate: make active bring new eyes to the people you encounter. Thus even
and vigorous as holidays help you appreciate your own home more-
not least by seeing it through a distant admirer’s eyes-
How does travel spin us? they help you bring newly appreciative-distant-eyes to
the places you visit. You can teach them what they have
to celebrate as much as you celebrate what they have to
teach. This, I think, is how tourism, which so obviously
destroys cultures, can also resuscitate or revive them, how
it has created new “traditional” dances in Bali, and caused
craftsmen in India to pay new attention to their works.
Thus travel spins us round in two ways at once: It
shows us the sights and values and issues that we might
ordinarily ignore; but it also, and more deeply, shows us
all the parts of ourselves that might otherwise grow rusty.
For in travelling to a truly foreign place, we inevitably
travel to moods and states of mind and hidden inward
passages that we’d otherwise seldom have cause to visit.
On the most basic level, when I’m in Tibet, though not
a real Buddhist, I spend days on end in temples, listening
to the chants of sutras. I go to Iceland to visit the lunar
spaces within me, and, in the uncanny quietude and
68
emptiness of that vast and treeless world, to tap parts of
myself generally obscured by chatter and routine.
We travel, then, in search of both self and anonymity - Hazlitt : an English essayist,
and, of course, in finding the one we apprehend the other. drama and literary critic,
Abroad, we are wonderfully free of caste and job and painter, social commentator
standing; we are, as Hazlitt puts it, just the “gentlemen and philosopher (10 April
in the parlour,” and people cannot put a name or tag to 1778 - 18 September 1830)
us. And precisely because we are clarified in this way,
and freed of inessential labels, we have the opportunity to
come into contact with more essential parts of ourselves
(which may begin to explain why we may feel most alive
when far from home).
Abroad is the place where we stay up late, follow impulse : a sudden strong
impulse and find ourselves as wide open as when we are in and unreflective urge to act
love. We live without a past or future, for a moment at least,
and are ourselves up for grabs and open to interpretation. Oliver Cromwell : an
We even may become mysterious-to others, at first, and English military and political
sometimes to ourselves-and, as no less a dignitary than leader (25 April 1599 -
Oliver Cromwell once noted, “A man never goes so far 3 September 1658)
as when he doesn’t know where he is going.”
educes : brings out or
There are, of course, great dangers to this, as to develops something latent or
every kind of freedom, but the great promise of it is that, potential
travelling, we are born again, and able to return at moments
to a younger and a more open kind of self. Travelling is
a way to reverse time, to a small extent, and make a day
last a year-or at least 45 hours-and travelling is an easy
way of surrounding ourselves, as in childhood, with what
we cannot understand. Language facilitates this cracking
open, for when we go to France, we often migrate to
French, and the more childlike self, simple and polite,
that speaking a foreign language educes. Even when I’m
not speaking pidgin English in Hanoi, I’m simplified in a
positive way, and concerned not with expressing myself,
but simply making sense.
So travel, for many of us, is a quest for not just the
unknown, but the unknowing; I, at least, travel in search
of an innocent eye that can return me to a more innocent
self. I tend to believe more abroad than I do at home
(which, though treacherous again, can at least help me
69
risumi : a risumi is a special to extend my vision), and I tend to be more easily excited
kind of resume that has been abroad, and even kinder. And since no one I meet can
written with an ISO 8859- “place” me -no one can fix me in my risumi – I can
1/14 character set and then remake myself for better, as well as, of course, for worse
sent through a mail that (if travel is notoriously a cradle for false identities, it can
drops the high bit. also, at its best, be a crucible for truer ones). In this way,
crucible : a situation in travel can be a kind of monasticism on the move: On the
which people or things are road, we often live more simply (even when staying in a
severely tested luxury hotel), with no more possessions than we can carry,
monasticism : resembling and surrendering ourselves to chance.
monks or their way of life
living alone This is what Camus meant when he said that “what
Camus : Albert Camus gives value to travel is fear”- disruption, in other words,
( 7 November 1913 - (or emancipation) from circumstance, and all the habits
4 January 1960) was a behind which we hide. And that is why many of us travel
French philosopher, author not in search of answers, but of better questions. I, like
and journalist many people, tend to ask questions of the places I visit, and
relish most the ones that ask the most searching questions
Christopher Isherwood back of me: “The ideal travel book,” Christopher
: (26 August 1904- 4 Isherwood once said, “should be perhaps a little like a
January 1986) an Anglo- crime story in which you’re in search of something.” And
American novelist, it’s the best kind of something, I would add, if it’s one that
playwright, screenwriter, you can never quite find.
autobiographer, and diarist
I remember, in fact, after my first trips to Southeast
Why are we objects of Asia, more than a decade ago, how I would come back
scrutiny? to my apartment in New York, and lie in my bed, kept
up by something more than jet lag, playing back, in my
memory, over and over, all that I had experienced, and
paging wistfully though my photographs and reading and
re-reading my diaries, as if to extract some mystery from
them. Anyone witnessing this strange scene would have
drawn the right conclusion: I was in love.
When we go abroad is that we are objects of scrutiny
as much as the people we scrutinize, and we are being
consumed by the cultures we consume, as much on the
road as when we are at home. At the very least, we are
objects of speculation (and even desire) who can seem as
exotic to the people around us as they do to us.
All, in that sense, believed in “being moved” as one
of the points of taking trips, and “being transported” by
70
private as well as public means; all saw that “ecstasy” ecstasy (ex-stasis) :
(“ex-stasis”) tells us that our highest moments come Discuss the pun implied by
when we’re not stationary, and that epiphany can follow the writer.
movement as much as it precipitates it.
Teriyaki : a Japanese dish
When you go to a McDonald’s outlet in Kyoto, you of fish or meat marinated in
will find Teriyaki McBurgers and Bacon Potato Pies. soya sauce and grilled
The placemats offer maps of the great temples of the
city, and the posters all around broadcast the wonders inalieanably : in a manner
of San Francisco. And-most crucial of all-the young that makes it impossible for
people eating their Big Macs, with baseball caps worn something to taken away.
backwards, and tight 501 jeans, are still utterly and Oolong teas : dark coloured
inalienably Japanese in the way they move, they nod, partly fermented China teas
they sip their Oolong teas - and never to be mistaken exotica : strikingly different
for the patrons of a McDonald’s outlet in Rio, Morocco or colourful, belonging to
or Managua. These days a whole new realm of exotica distant foreign countries
arises out of the way one culture colours and appropriates
the products of another. Guess the meaning :
• many - tongued
The other factor complicating and exciting all of this • mongrel
is people, who are, more and more, themselves as many- • inheritance
tongued and mongrel as cities like Sydney or Toronto • notions
or Hong Kong. I am, in many ways, an increasingly
typical specimen, if only because I was born, as the son
of Indian parents, in England, moved to America at 7
and cannot really call myself an Indian, an American
or an Englishman. I was, in short, a traveler at birth, for
whom even a visit to the candy store was a trip through
a foreign world where no one I saw quite matched my
parents’ inheritance, or my own. Besides, even those who
don’t move around the world find the world moving more
and more around them. Walk just six blocks, in Queens or
Berkeley, and you’re travelling through several cultures
in as many minutes; get into a cab outside the White
House, and you’re often in a piece of Addis Ababa. And
technology, too, compounds this (sometimes deceptive)
sense of availability, so that many people feel they can
travel around the world without leaving the room-through
cyberspace or CD-ROMs, videos and virtual travel.
There are many challenges in this, of course, in what it
says about essential notions of family and community
71
in flux : undergoing constant and loyalty, and in the worry that air-conditioned, purely
frequent changes synthetic versions of places may replace the real thing-
not to mention the fact that the world seems increasingly
Sir John Mendeville : in flux, a moving target quicker than our notions of it. But
the supposed author of there is, for the traveler at least, the sense that learning
‘The Travels of Sir John about home and learning about a foreign world can be one
Mendeville,’ a travel and the same thing.
memoir in French which first
circulated between 1357- All of us feel this from the cradle, and know, in some
1371 sense, that all the significant movement we ever take is
internal. We travel when we see a movie, strike up a new
ineffable : too great or friendship, get held up. Novels are often journeys as much
extreme to be expressed in as travel books are fictions; and though this has been
words. true since at least as long ago as Sir John Mandeville’s
Emerson : Ralph Waldo colourful 14th century accounts of a Far East he’d never
Emerson (25 May 1803- visited, it’s an even more shadowy distinction now, as
27 April 1882) was an genre distinctions join other borders in collapsing.
American essayist, lecturer,
philosopher and poet. Travel, then, is a voyage into that famously subjective
zone, the imagination, and what the traveler brings back
Thoreau : Henry David is - and has to be - an ineffable compound of himself
Thoreau (12 July 1817- and the place, what’s really there and what’s only in him.
6 May 1862) was an And since travel is, in a sense, about the conspiracy of
American essayist, poet and perception and imagination, the two great travel writers,
philosopher. for me, to whom I constantly return are Emerson and
Thoreau (the one who famously advised that “travelling
Sir Thomas Browne : Sir is a fool’s paradise,” and the other who “traveled a good
Thomas Browne (19 October deal in Concord”). Both of them insist on the fact that
1605- 19 October 1682) was reality is our creation, and that we invent the places we
an English polymath and see as much as we do the books that we read. What we
author of varied works. find outside ourselves has to be inside ourselves for us
to find it. Or, as Sir Thomas Browne sagely put it, “We
carry within us the wonders we seek without us. There is
Africa and her prodigies in us.”
So, if more and more of us have to carry our sense of
home inside us, we also - Emerson and Thoreau remind
us-have to carry with us our sense of destination. The
most valuable Pacifics we explore will always be the vast
expanses within us, and the most important Northwest
Crossings the thresholds we cross in the heart. The virtue
of finding a gilded pavilion in Kyoto is that it allows you
72
to take back a more lasting, private Golden Temple to Collect information about
your office in Rockefeller Center. Rockfeller Center.
And even as the world seems to grow more exhausted, Peter Matthiessen: an
our travels do not, and some of the finest travel books American novelist (22
in recent years have been those that undertake a parallel may 1927- 5April 2014),
journey, matching the physical steps of a pilgrimage naturalist, wilderness writer,
with the metaphysical steps of a questioning (as in Peter zen teacher and CIA officer
Matthiessen’s great “The Snow Leopard”), or chronicling
a trip to the farthest reaches of human strangeness (as in Oliver Sacks : (9 July 1933-
Oliver Sacks’ “Island of the Color-Blind,” which features 30 August 2015) a British
a journey not just to a remote atoll in the Pacific, but to neurologist, naturalist,
a realm where people actually see light differently). The historian of science
most distant shores, we are constantly reminded, lie within Guess the meaning :
the person asleep at our side. • atoll
• prejudice
So travel, at heart, is just a quick way to keeping • fosters
our minds mobile and awake. As Santayana, the heir
to Emerson and Thoreau with whom I began, wrote, apostles : vigorous and
“There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from pioneering supporters of an
the familiar to the unfamiliar; it keeps the mind nimble; idea or a cause
it kills prejudice, and it fosters humour.” Romantic
poets inaugurated an era of travel because they were the
great apostles of open eyes. Buddhist monks are often
vagabonds, in part because they believe in wakefulness.
And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because
it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are
mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready
to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best
love affairs, never really end.
- Siddarth Pico Raghavan Iyer
73
BRAINSTORMING
(A1) Read the first two paragraphs and discuss the need to travel.
(A2) (i) Read the sentence ‘If a diploma can famously ………. in cultural relativism.’
Pick the sentence which gives the meaning of the above statement from
the alternatives given below.
(a) A diploma certificate can be used as a passport and a passport can be
used as a diploma certificate.
(b) If one has a diploma, he does not need a passport and if he has a
passport, he does not need a diploma.
(c) One can acquire permission to travel to foreign countries for educational
purposes based on her academic achievements and travelling to foreign
countries enriches one the most regarding the knowledge and wisdom of
the world.
(ii) Prepare a list of the litterateurs and their quotations mentioned by the
writer in the essay.
(iii) ‘The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new places but in
seeing with new eyes.’ - Marcel Proust. Justify with the help of the text.
(iv) Read the third paragraph and find the difference between a tourist and
a traveller as revealed through the complaints made by them.
(v) Write four sentences with the help of the text conveying the fact that
travelling brings together the various cultures of the different parts of the
world.
(vi) By quoting Camus, the writer has stated that travelling emancipates us
from circumstances and all the habits behind which we hide. Write in
detail your views about that.
(A3) (i) Read the following groups of words from the text.
AB
crooked angle walking video screens
censored limits living newspapers
impoverished places searching questions
Words crooked, censored and impoverished in group ‘A’ describe the nouns
'angle', 'limits' and 'places' respectively. They are past participles of the
verbs 'crook', 'censor' and 'impoverish'. But in the sentences they act as
adjectives. Similarly, in group ‘B’ words-walking, living and searching are
the present participles (‘ing’ forms) of the verbs-walk, live and search.
But in the above examples they function as adjectives.
74
Discuss in pairs and make list of some more adjectives like this and make
sentences using them.
(ii) The verbs in bold letters are made up of a verb and a small adverb.
(adverb particle. Adverb particles are not the same as prepositions.). For
example, shake (verb) + up (adverb). These are called ‘phrasal verbs.’ The
meaning of a phrasal verb may be idiomatic-different from the meanings of
the two separate words.
Read carefully the following sentences from the text and underline the
phrasal verbs.
(a) We travel, then, in part just to shake up our complacencies.
(b) Abroad is the place where we stay up late.
(c) I remember, in fact, after my first trip to Southeast Asia, more than a
decade ago. how I would come back to my apartment in New York.
(d) All, in that sense, believed in, “being moved”…..
(e) But there is, for the traveller at least, the sense that learning about home
and ……
(A4) (i) The words in bold type show to+ verb form. These are infinitives. An
infinitive is the base form of the verb. Infinitive is formed from a verb
but it does not act as verbs because an infinitive is not a verb; 's', 'es',
or 'ing' cannot be added to that.
However, sometimes infinitives may occur without ‘to’. For example,
Thus even as holidays help you appreciate your own home more –…..
In this sentence, though ‘to’ is skipped off, ‘appreciate’ acts as an infinitive’.
Read the following sentences carefully from the text and find out the
infinitives.
(a) We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves.
(b) We travel to bring what little we can,…..
(c) Yet one of the subtler beauties of travel is that it enables you to bring
new eyes to the people you encounter.
(ii) Combine two sentences into one. You may use the word given in the
brackets.
(a) I go to Iceland. I visit the lunar spaces within me. (to)
(b) We have the opportunity. We come into contact with more essential parts
of ourselves. (of)
(c) Romantic poets inaugurated an era of travel. They were great apostles of
open eyes. (being)
75
(d) The travel spins us around. It shows us the sights and values ordinarily
ignored. (showing)
(iii) Read the sentences given below and state whether the underlined words
are gerunds or present participles.
(a) As it's a hot day, many people are swimming
(b) This is a swimming pool.
(c) It's very bad that children are begging.
(d) Begging is a curse on humanity.
(A5) Write an email to your friends about your proposed trek. You can take
help of the following points. You can keep your parents informed about
it by adding them in BCC.
• A trek in the forest of Kodaikanal
• Time and duration
• Type of trek (cycle/ motorbike/ walk)
• Facilities provided
• Last date for registration
• Fees
(A6) There is boom in 'Travel and Tourism' career. Find information about
different options in this field.
(A7) (i) Find information about:
(a) Fa Hien
(b) Huen Tsang
(c) Ibn Batuta
(d) Marco Polo
(e) Sir Richard Burton
(ii) Further reading:
• 'Childe Herold’s Pilgrimage' - Lord Byron
• 'Gulliver’s Travels' - Jonathan Swift
• 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea' - Jules Verne
• 'Traveling Souls' - Brian Bouldrey
qqq
76
1.8 Voyaging Towards Excellence
ICE BREAKERS
There are different ways to travel from one place to another for different
purposes. Discuss with your partner and match the words given in table A
with their meanings in table B.
A B
(a) Cruise (i) a long journey on a ship
(b) Expedition (ii) a short visit to an outdoor place where people celebrate, enjoy
(c) Camp and eat meals
(iii) a brief pleasure outdoor visit
(d) Trip (iv) a short journey to a place with a particular purpose
(e) Excursion
(f) Picnic (v) a place usually away from urban areas where tents are erected
(g) Voyage for shelter
(vi) a journey especially by a group of people for a specific
purpose
(vii) a journey on a boat or ship to a number of places
Discuss the following with your partner and complete the web.
Vision Hard Work
Qualities
required for
excellence
77
Achyut Godbole (born 1950) is well known for his writings in
Marathi and English. He is a prolific writer in various genres and
has produced numerous original works as well as adaptations
of works from other languages into Marathi. His writing style
is informative and yet very informal. He became a Chemical
Engineer from IIT Mumbai in 1972 and headed top management
positions in companies of great repute.
This autobiographical sketch penned by Achyut Godbole
depicts his journey from a middle class school boy to a famous
writer. He was a successful General Manager of Patni Computer
Systems. He headed many other reputed companies and later became a famous writer.
The present write-up discusses his quest for excellence, how he developed a thirst for
knowledge. He discusses at length the ingredients / essentials of success and the ways
to achieve it.
Voyaging Towards Excellence
1. What does rich childhood I had a very simple upbringing. We were a lower
mean? middle class family. Our 300 square feet house did
not even have basic amenities such as a fan, a
2. How do arts, music and refrigerator, a geyser, a dining table or a gas stove;
literature enrich our lives? leave alone an air conditioner or a car. It was only
when I entered the college that I got a watch and we
3. Why should you study any got a dining table and a gas stove at home.
subject ? Nevertheless, culturally, I had a rich childhood. Poets
like Vinda Karandikar, Mangesh Padgaonkar and
tremendously : to a very great Vasant Bapat used to visit our home and for hours I
extent could listen to the discussions about poetry and
literature-Marathi and English. They used to talk about
Keshavsut, Mardhekar, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens
and Thomas Hardy. I did not fully understand their
discussions in depth, but I was immensely impressed.
We also were lucky to have Pt. Kumar Gandharv, Pt.
Bhimsen Joshi and Pt. Jasraj visit our place and talk
about Indian music till late night or sometimes dawn.
This is how and why I developed my interest in
literature and music during my school days. I did not
and even today don’t understand the ‘grammar’ of
music, but I began to love it tremendously since then.
Most of the times, the topics of discussion at our
home were about music, literature, paintings, sculptures
etc. I could listen to the discussions about Van Gogh,
78
Mozart and Michaelangelo etc. It was because of such milieu : setting or social
a milieu around me that I had a firm belief which I environment
still hold that all arts are equally, if not more,
important in our lives than Science or Technology. I inherent : existing in
had learnt from my childhood that money does not something as permanent
mean everything in life. It is necessary, but if at all elegant : graceful or stylish
there is something which enriches our lives and puts in appearance or manner
meaning to our existence, it is the arts, music and
literature. The writer developed a
problem-solving attitude
This is not to say that I did not like Science or because ...
Mathematics. In fact, I loved these subjects. However, (1)
I did not study them only for scoring maximum marks (2)
in the examinations. I used to study these subjects or
any subject for that matter for its inherent beauty. I What are the achievements
found Newton’s law of motion beautiful and of the writer in
Pythagorean Theorem elegant. I loved solving problems Mathematics?
of Physics and Mathematics of the 9th standard when
I was in the 7th, not to show off, but just because I
used to get involved in solving them. I used to love
problem-solving and used to enjoy finding out the
most elegant method of solving them. Obviously, these
problems were not a part of the curriculum, but I
enjoyed the whole process. This attitude of looking
beyond marks or examinations and to seek joy in
solving any challenging problem helped me to develop
a ‘problem-solving’ attitude which came handy when
I appeared for my IIT entrance (JEE) because this
exam is completely based on your problem-solving
ability and the ability to think not only logically but
quickly and rapidly.
I scored 100% marks in Mathematics in almost all
the examinations that I appeared for from my 1st
standard until IIT, barring only a few times. I stood
16th in the SSC Board (at that time, this examination
was for the whole of Maharashtra, including Nagpur)
and I stood 1st in the University in all subjects put
together. Those days, you could get an admission into
IIT without the entrance test (JEE) if you had secured
the 1st rank in the University. Therefore, I did not have
to appear for the entrance test to get the admission into
IIT, but nobody in Solapur told me about it, for I doubt
79
Why was the writer’s if anybody in Solapur even knew about this rule.
joy shortlived? Therefore, I appeared for the entrance examination, and
I secured a very good rank in the same.
Guess the meaning:
• inferiority complex I was quite happy getting into IIT, but my joy was
• sophisticated shortlived. At Solapur I had not seen any building
• arrogant which was more than three storeyed. Mumbai however
was full of skyscrapers. At IIT, most of the students
diffident : lacking and professors used to converse in English whereas
confidence my English was very poor. I had my entire education
in Marathi. My spoken English was quite pathetic. Not
only did I have a very weak vocabulary, but, my
pronunciation also was terrible and my construction of
English sentences very awkward to say the least. Due
to all this, I was feeling quite lonely and terrified in
Mumbai in general and IIT in particular. I had
developed an inferiority complex and wanted to run
away from IIT and even Mumbai.
One day, I was sitting at my mess table in the
hostel sipping tea when a senior guy came and sat
on the chair adjacent to me. He was a convent
educated guy with fairly sophisticated English- at
least spoken or colloquial English. He was a bit
arrogant and wanted to pull my leg. He tried to
engage in some conversation with me and started
pointing out errors in just about every sentence or
everything that I said. After about 5 minutes he walked
away after insulting me.
I felt extremely humiliated and upset. As it is, I
was feeling quite depressed and diffident and this
incident was the last straw. I was almost broken. I
felt out of place there and literally wanted to run
away to Solapur that very moment. However, it was
only my self-esteem which stopped me. Suddenly, a
feeling of determination and strength came over me
and gripped me. Despite hailing from Solapur, if I
could be a rank holder in the school, college and IIT
with many awards in Mathematics, there must be
something right with me. Why should I give up? And
that too for a silly and small thing like English? I
was not to give up anymore, and I was determined
to fight back.
80
As I climbed the stairs of my hostel room, my vernacular : native, regional
plan was ready in my mind. Normally most of us
who are educated in vernacular languages such as phonetics: relating to speech
Marathi, think in Marathi, before speaking in English, sounds, study of correct
translate it in English and then somehow try to speak pronunciation of words
out these translated English sentences in an extremely
awkward fashion. Guess the meaning:
• negotiate
I had decided that I would do nothing of this sort. • at ease
I wanted to achieve excellence. This urge to excel in
anything that you try to do has been with me since Find the full forms of :
the childhood. Whether I would succeed in this or not, IIT:
I always set my aims high. In this case too, I wanted TIFR:
to speak excellent, elegant and fluent English. BARC:
TCP :
The first thing I did was to start reading English IP :
newspapers and English novels. I studied etymology
and phonetics and studied the roots of the words and
how to pronounce them. I used to stand in front of
the mirror and practice speaking, realising my mistakes
and correcting them myself all the time and improvising
and improving day by day.
It took about 9-10 months by which time I started
feeling quite confident about speaking in English at
length with anybody. My fear had vanished and I
started feeling at home in my hostel. In my future
career, out of 32 years in Information Technology
field, I was the Chief Executive or Managing Director
or head of Software Company with thousands of
software engineers worldwide. During that period I
had to give several presentations or negotiate many
contracts with the CEOs, Directors or VPs in the US,
UK or Australia. I was absolutely at ease at that time.
It is only due to the efforts at IIT that I could sign
contracts worth millions of dollars worldwide and also
run large global software companies.
At IIT I got fairly good marks in my first 2 years.
However, a very important thing happened while I
was in my 3rd year. I came in contact with about
15-20 extremely brilliant students/researchers/professors
from IIT, TIFR and BARC. They included top ranking
students from IIT, visiting professors in American
81
instantaneously: happening Universities, and very renowned mathematicians in the
very quickly world and so on. I was instantaneously attracted to
this group. This friendship had a lasting impact on
Do you know the top my life. Until that time I used to consider myself
universities in the world? somewhat intelligent. However, after I met my friends
Name some of them. in our group, I came to know what real brilliance
meant and I realised where I stood. I was actually
The writer was benefitted also very lucky that I came in contact with great
by the discussions with people on the global scale early in my life. Later in
great people as it... my life when Mr. Narayan Murthy left Patni to start
(1) Infosys, I started heading Patni’s software division
(2) occupying the same chair. My Head Office was in
(3) Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, very near Boston. It
was in fact the adjacent building to MIT in America.
I had to visit the US every few months in those days.
I used to visit MIT during lunch time to meet my
friends. There, one could see a couple of Nobel
Laureates at the dining table. If you walked for an
hour from there, you could reach Harvard Square near
Harvard University. I used to visit both of these
universities and could talk to a number of Nobel
Laureates. During these years I travelled a lot to US,
Europe, Japan and Australia and could meet a number
of great thinkers and management gurus such as Alvin
Toffler, Peter Drucker, C. K. Prahlad, Tom Peters or
great technologists such as Vincent Cerf, (who designed
TCP/IP which is the basic protocol of Internet). All
these discussions with these greats broadened my
horizon, and my aims and worldview became global.
It taught me humility and made me realise that I had
to achieve a lot in life. The lesson in humility and
hard work as well as passion for excellence was going
to play a very important and vital role in my life.
Coming back to my groups in IIT, my friends were
not only more intelligent than me, but they were very
well-read. They had interest in all the subjects like
Science, Technology, Sociology, Psychology, Economics,
Philosophy, Anthropology, Archeology, Political Science
etc. Our group was interested in all of these branches
apart from all the fine arts such as music, literature,
painting …. In short, our group was interested in
82
almost anything under the sun and which concerned Find the meaning :
human life and existence. I was immediately attracted • anything under the sun
to the group and developed immense and deep interest
in all these branches of knowledge. None of these 1. Why does the author
subjects were part of our curriculum at IIT, but again, passing the examination of
I never studied for scoring marks in any examination. life is more important?
Here was a sea of knowledge in front of me which
I thought was necessary to pass the ‘examination of 2. Why are curiosity and
life’ which was far more important than just passing humanity important?
IIT examination. It is very difficult to become a master
or an expert in all these subjects, but it was very Find the full form of :
important for me to understand at least the basic • GRE
principles of most of these subjects. Any of us could
easily top the GRE examination and migrate to the US.
However, that thought never even touched our minds.
To understand the world and how it works and serving
India and her people was far more important to us.
Therefore, I plunged into all these branches of plunged into: dived into
knowledge. It was a period of renaissance for me. renaissance : a rebirth or
We used to discuss about relativity, Big Bang, revival of learning
aesthetics, literature, philosophy, economics and many
other subjects every day until late into the nights. My rationalism : the practice of
cupboard was full of books on a variety of topics. It basing opinions and actions
is only because of the human curiosity that we have on reason and knowledge
been able to make such a great progress in science rather than on religious beliefs
and technology, and social sciences. I have a number or emotional responses
of limitations, but one thing I am proud of is the
curiosity, humility and humanity, i.e., concern for our
fellow human beings. I learnt these values during my
IIT days. I also became a firm believer in rationalism
and equality for all the castes, creeds, races, genders
and religions. I started treating Nature as God and
humanity as religion.
I passed from IIT, joined a non-violent social
movement for tribals with Sarvodaya, participated in
a peaceful satyagraha, went to jail for 10 days, came
back to Mumbai, was jobless for a while, worked for
Rs. 125/month to supervise workers at the night shift
in a mechanical workshop, changed 13 houses in
Mumbai, and finally settled on Information Technology
as my career. I spent 32 years in Information
83
What are the principles Technology out of which I was a Chief Executive
of good management ? Officer or MD or the software head for 23 years for
large global multinational software companies with
Do you think passion thousands of software professionals worldwide and 6
is more important than offices in the US, 3 in Europe, 1 in Japan and 1 in
wealth? Australia. I had to travel all over the globe around
150 times for business. During this period, I had also
written 4 books with 500-700 pages each on Information
Technology published by Tata McGraw-Hill and then
translated into Chinese for global distribution.
I learnt a lot of things when I was running these
large companies. The first one was the importance of
team work. In today’s world, nothing is possible
without team work. You cannot be successful if you
are a loner and an egoistic person. Secondly, you need
to lead from the front by setting a good example in
front of your staff. Third was that you need to treat
your subordinates and your colleagues as friends. In
my career, I made a few mistakes, but learnt a lot
about motivation, being a good listener, target setting
and the art of delegation which forms such an
important part of today's management.
After working for all these software companies for
so many years, I wanted to return to my first love
i.e. to read and write on various subjects concerning
human life and existence. Therefore, I gave up two
offers of around 3 crore rupees per annum to become
a writer. This is how my second innings as a writer
in Marathi began.
After this, I have written about 34 books in
Marathi. Most of them have become bestsellers with
tens of thousands of copies sold for each. However,
it is not the sales or the money that is important to
me as much as the fact that these books have brought
about very good changes in the lives of thousands of
readers. After reading my autobiography ‘Musafir’ and
a book on Psychology ‘Manat’, hundreds have come
out of depression and more than a dozen have given
up thoughts of committing suicide and decided to start
all afresh. There are hundreds who tell me that they
understood the theory of relativity or Big Bang after
84
reading my book on Science ‘Kimayagar’. My book How did the author touch the
‘Boardroom’ on Management has created at least 20 hearts of the readers?
successful entrepreneurs. Then there are hundreds who
tell me that they now can understand Economic Times
or NDTV Profit after reading my book on economics
‘Arthat’. Many have turned to Mathematics after
reading my book on Mathematics ‘Ganiti’. The same
is true about my books on Indian Music (Nadvedh),
English Literature (Zapoorza), Painting (Canvas),
Western Films (Limelight) and Western Music
(Symphony) or books such as ‘Genius’ series, ‘Rakta’
or ‘Vitamins’ or ‘Anartha’. It is these reactions of
thousands of readers and the feeling that I am touching
the hearts of thousands, if not lakhs, of my readers
that keeps me going.
Why am I telling you my story? When I look
back, there are a number of lessons and values that
I cherish and keep learning about even today. Some
of these are: Thirst for knowledge, Curiosity, Humility,
Humanity, Rationality, Equality, Team work, Quest for
excellence, Never say die, Thinking big...
- Achyut Godbole
BRAINSTORMING
(A1) (i) Upbringing plays a very important role in shaping one's life.
The teacher will form two groups in the class. One group will speak in favour
of the above topic while the other will speak against it. Debate brings out
different perspectives, it does not mean one is right and other is wrong. You
can take help of the following points and have a debate on it.
In favour of the topic Against the topic
1. Provides a healthy atmosphere
1. Achievers can be successful in any
atmosphere
2. Makes you confident 2. They are self confident, reliant and
3. Helps in finding the role model dependent
3. They become role models for others
4. Helps to follow the footsteps of 4. They set an example for others
successful people
85
(ii) Go through the text again and describe the second innings of the writer
in your own words.
(A2) (i) Read the text again and make a list of great Indian and foreign personalities
who had a great impact on Achyut Godbole during his childhood. One is
done for you.
Poets Vinda Karandikar,………….,………..,………….,……….
Writers ……….,………….,
Musicians ………….,………….,
Dramatists ………….,……………..
Painters ………….,……………..
(ii) Find different techniques used by the writer to learn Science and
Mathematics. One is done for you.
(a) The writer used to appreciate the inherent beauty of these subjects.
(b)
(c)
(d)
(iii) The writer faced numerous problems while communicating in English
because-
(a) He had his entire education in Marathi.
(b)
(c)
(iv) The writer was completely stumped because his
(a) vocabulary was
(b) spoken English was
(c) pronunciation was
(d) construction of sentences was
(v) Read the text again and complete the sentence:
Due to the writer’s pathetic English speaking style, he
(a)
(b)
(c)
(vi) Complete the following sentences. The writer wanted to achieve mastery
in English because-
(a) he wanted to speak
86
(b) he will be able to
(c) he need not have to
(vii) Make a list of different steps that the writer undertook to improve his
English speaking skills.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(viii) (a) Read the text again and describe the writer’s achievements after
achieving mastery over the English language.
- His fear for English disappeared.
-
-
-
(b) Go through the text again and complete the table comparing two
different phases of life of the writer-as an MD or Chief Executive
Officer and an activist of Sarvodaya movement.
MD or Chief Executive Officer Activist of Sarvodaya Movement
Head of the company for 23 years Participated in a peaceful satyagraha
--
--
(ix) (a) Complete the web highlighting the various opportunities you gained
due to your good English speaking skills.
Always selected for
debate competitions
Opportunities
you gained
(b) Describe a situation or incident when you felt embarassed for your
lack of knowledge of a particular subject or incompetence in speaking
English fluently.
87
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